Governors gag over D.C. dysfunction

SALT LAKE CITY – In the eyes of America’s governors, Washington D.C. has hit a new low.

State executives have long vented about the shortcomings of the Beltway mindset, carping that the federal government is too partisan, too fiscally irresponsible and out of touch with the citizens back home.

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Now, those complaints have evolved into deep frustration, verging on contempt, thanks to a stalled debate over the federal debt ceiling that caps off months of partisan dysfunction in Congress.

At the National Governors Association meeting here in Salt Lake City, governors in both parties expressed disbelief over a national government that has failed to match in even modest fashion the explosion of policy action this year in the states.

“The contrast between what the 50 governors are doing, putting aside partisan politics as much as they can to try to get results, and what is happening in Washington, has probably never been more stark in our national history,” said Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat.

“Whether it’s the Vermont approach, or the New Jersey, Wisconsin or Florida approach, we’re getting results,” he said, making a point to list states with Republican governors. “I don’t agree with some of the things they’re getting done in the states I just mentioned, but they’re trying to solve real problems.”

The achievement gap this year between Washington and the states is astonishing, and crosses party lines. Shumlin, elected in 2010, has already racked up a historic legislative accomplishment: He signed a bill putting Vermont on track to become the only state with a single-payer health care system.

A long list of governors in both parties have recorded sweeping victories of their own in 2011.

Some of the most striking achievements have come from executives who have had to work with partisan rivals in their state legislatures: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo negotiated with a Republican state Senate to legalize same-sex marriage and pass the Empire State’s first on-time budget in decades. Across the Hudson River, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie reformed the state pension system by working with a Democratic state House and Senate.

By comparison, Washington has spent most of the year locked in trench warfare, marked by confrontations over funding the federal government and raising the debt limit.